THEATER REVIEW

Hellman v. McCarthy

It sounds nuts, kids, but once upon a time serious writers appeared on talk shows, and their feuds were national news.

One of those legendary disputes inspired the new play “Hellman v. McCarthy” — starring the man in the middle, Dick Cavett, as himself.

It all started in an October 1979 taping of “The Dick Cavett Show,” when he asked his guest, literary critic and author Mary McCarthy, whom she thought was overrated. She promptly named Lillian Hellman, the writer of Broadway’s “The Little Foxes” and several popular memoirs.

Driving home her point, McCarthy added, “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ ”

Hellman was watching the show when it aired a few months later on PBS — “Let’s hear what the bitch has to say for herself” the 74-year-old crank tells her nurse in the show — and hit the roof. She called her lawyer, ordering him to sue McCarthy, Cavett and the network.

Game on!

The juicy battle has fueled books and articles ever since. Nora Ephron even used it as the basis for her 2002 show “Imaginary Friends.”

Now it’s Brian Richard Mori’s turn, with a play (directly by Jan Buttram) that focuses on the four-year lawsuit that ended with Hellman’s death. Cavett was both bystander and accused, and here he makes for an amusingly laidback narrator, guiding us through the details of the case. He even took questions from the audience after a curtain call.

The play itself isn’t all that good, a kind of Wiki-theater of clunky exposition. A fictitious confrontation between the women turns into an excuse for name-dropping and sentimental balderdash.

Besides the surreal sight of Cavett playing himself, the most appealing thing about the show is the way it unexpectedly turns the tables on the characters.

McCarthy (Marcia Rodd) is usually seen as the hero but here she comes across as smug and sanctimonious, while Hellman is hugely entertaining as a profane, bitterly funny curmudgeon.

Roberta Maxwell is particularly good in the part: Her facial expressions while Cavett bloviates about the case are priceless, and their exchanges a marvel in contrasting temperaments.